The IndieWeb is a growing people-focused alternative to the ‘corporate web’.

This BoF session is encouraged for all levels of Drupal users: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Developers, and particularly those working for larger corporations, should be interested in the benefits that some of the IndieWeb principles can convey to the marketing/communications departments of their clients' companies.

Haven't you (or your clients) always wanted to be the "hub" of your own online presence with ancillary social services helping to serve your purposes rather than the services' own interests? Isn't this why we all want to build and have our own online spaces in the first place?

With the rise of areas like social media, it's often the case that much of our content and material lives in corporate silos like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and a variety of other sites. Sadly, as netizens, we do not have direct control over these sites, often can't export our data from them, and they can be (and often are) bought out or shut down at almost a moments notice. Worse, comments and interaction with our content is typically also stuck in these silos and it lives or dies with them. Wouldn't you love to have the network effect and value that these sites bring without the extra work or hindrances they bring?

There is a growing and very viable alternative to this model which is being built by the IndieWebCamp community as a multi-platform and opensource project which dovetails well with the ideals of the Drupal community.

Those who are interested in learning about and discussing some of the basic principles and philosophies of the movement are encouraged to attend. We'll chat about some of the current projects and capabilities as well as open standards that help enable the functionality you've always wanted (or maybe didn't know you wanted until now) in your websites.

Moving forward, we can all build IndieWeb principles into the Drupal platform to help it remain relevant as the web continues to grow and evolve.

A wealth of information about the IndieWeb community can be found at their website, but as a brief overview some of their basic principles appear below:

Your content is yoursWhen you post something on the web, it should belong to you, not a corporation. Too many companies have gone out of business and lost all of their users’ data. By joining the IndieWeb, your content stays yours and in your control.

You are better connectedYour articles and status messages can go to all services, not just one, allowing you to engage with everyone. Even replies and likes on other services can come back to your site so they’re all in one place.

You are in controlYou can post anything you want, in any format you want, with no one monitoring you. In addition, you share simple readable links such as example.com/ideas. These links are permanent and will always work.